The terraced hills above this tiny hamlet have been coveted for growing grapes at least since the 13th century. This is not the obvious spot for a newcomer.

Arriving in 2006, Erich Krutzler figured it would take years to access the vineyards, even if his wife, Elisabeth, is the daughter of renowned vintner F.X. Pichler. Krutzler's family makes red wine in Austria's eastern Burgenland region, but here he was an outsider.

Within a year, the couple were awash in wine, producing 10,000 bottles for their newborn label, Pichler-Krutzler.

"I didn't expect it would be that quick," Krutzler recalls, as we taste in his father-in-law's living room. "But there were a lot of people to rent a vineyard from."

Austria is bursting with pride in its wines. Shops and restaurants are full of bottles from homegrown stars; names like Alzinger and Hirtzberger are remarkably accessible given their top reputations. At the Loibnerhof restaurant in nearby Unterloiben, wines from owner Emmerich Knoll, another top name here in the Wachau, Austria's most famous wine region, are cheerfully poured by the glass to wash down plates of plump white asparagus.

Industry destroyed

This is the happy finish line of a 25-year rally. In 1985, the discovery of wine tainted with diethylene glycol destroyed Austria's wine industry. It soon was reborn, thanks to strict laws and fastidious winemaking.

With wine exports at $154 million, up from about $6 million in 1986, Austria has been transformed from a regional asterisk, making cheap bottles to quench European thirsts, into a source of distinctive and reliable wine. Thanks is due largely to the Gruner Veltliner grape, which enjoyed a rapid celebrity among sommeliers who evangelized it as the non-Chardonnay.

That brush with fame obscured a more crucial fact: In the past 10 years, Austria's wines have become some of the world's best.

There was a sacrifice in this great revival: the sense of terroir. Cellar work for white wine, which outpaces red nearly two to one in Austria, became sterile. Grapes were destemmed and immediately pressed to avoid harsh flavors; cold fermentations, often in steel rather than traditional casks, were used to boost aromas; wine was protected from oxygen at all costs.

The resulting bottles were full of freshness, immediately appealing on first sip. But too many lacked markers of their origins.

"A lot of people like those wines," says Emmerich Knoll, the latest generation at his family's estate and incoming chairman of the Vinea Wachau trade association. "But those are the wines that, after a year, who cares?"

The response? A look to the past, and traditional cellar practices - not unlike moves made by savvy vintners elsewhere, like Burgundy's Jean-Marc Roulot.

More Austrian winemakers began to throw whole grape bunches into the press, stems and all. The resulting juice saw plenty of oxygen, often turning brown before clarifying. If these moves stripped away more immediate aromas, they resulted in more interesting, longer-lived wines.

These vintners also spurned the 1990s flirtation (hardly unique to Austria) with new oak and aggressive stirring of wine lees to bulk up texture. Many shook off the habit of bottling vintages just months after harvest. In the Kamptal region, Hannes Hirsch of Weingut Hirsch now waits until May to bottle most of his wines.

"I have no idea," he says, "what all this young drinking is all about."

Heritage plants

These changes in the cellar are matched by diligence in the field. High-yielding vine clones and trellises are being dumped in favor of heritage plant material and more vigorous pruning.

Few countries have such a widespread fondness for organic and biodynamic viticulture, in part because of the industry's reboot and in part because it's the homeland of Rudolf Steiner, the father of biodynamics.

Yet Austria has also given birth to a schism in biodynamics. On one side are estates like Nikolaihof, which embraced biodynamics in 1971, presumably Europe's first wine estate to use the method and a vigorous proponent of Demeter, biodynamics' standard-setting body. On the other is a growing cadre of vintners uncomfortable with Steiner's rigorous precepts, developed in the early 20th century.

This includes Hirsch, plus the Wachau's Fred Loimer, Paul Achs of the Burgenland region and vintner Bernhard Ott of the Wagram region. Recently they have unveiled an alternate effort called Respekt that combines organic certification with biodynamics-derived practices. Proponents say it improves on Steiner's firm rules.

"The last step is not 1924," Ott says. "It's a good background, but the work today is completely different."

Rebuilding Austria's wine culture had another downside.

Its success was largely hinged on promoting varietal wines, particularly Gruner Veltliner. This was a lesson borrowed from American wine, which built its modern success that way. But the notion of Austrian terroir was drowned out by the marketing thrum of King Gruner.

Origins vs. variety

"What happened is we changed our wine culture to start selling according to variety," says Michael "Michi" Moosbrugger, manager of the historic Schloss Gobelsburg estate. "If we want to secure the Austrian wine culture in the long run, we need to make the origins of our wine stronger than the grape variety."

Moosbrugger's insistence makes sense as you begin to understand the Kamptal region's extraordinary soils. Outside the city of Langenlois, the Heiligenstein hill rises like a battlement - its sun-baked slopes and conglomerate of sandstone, gneiss and volcanic soil the source of stoic, chewy wines. Nearby, the mica schist of the Gaisberg caps the Bohemian Massif, a geological formation that stretches to Poland; its fleshy Rieslings brim with red currant flavors. Lower on the same slope, the Renner's loamy gneiss soils produce delicate, floral Gruner.

Moosbrugger not only wants to extol these sites, he wants to preserve the winemaking that showcases their character. Thus his Tradition bottlings, inspired by 19th century principles of long, oxygen-friendly cask aging. These wines can require five years in the bottle to find their voice, but they speak distinctly.

Such techniques may offer Gruner its best shot at greatness. While Riesling has been Austria's elite grape, Gruner has been marketed to oblivion, often in popular liter bottles. But with the right winemaking, I'd argue that it can be the vehicle for Austria's fame.

And yet, don't ignore the supporting cast. The southern region of Styria produces lavish Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay. Winemakers in Vienna, the only major European city with a long winemaking history, have revived the tradition of white field blends, Gemichter Satz, served in wine taverns known as heurigen.

Local grapes like Roter Veltliner and Neuberger are enjoying a revival. And Muscat lovers shouldn't miss the benchmark Muskateller from Franz-Josef Gritsch of Gritsch Mauritiushof, grown in the gravelly Hartberg vineyard. Not to be outdone, Bernhard Ott is making a skin-fermented Gruner Veltliner in the ancient Georgian amphorae known as qvevri.

Complex soil, new faces

Curiously, it's the Wachau where some of the most dramatic changes have appeared - perhaps because it's the one major region to spurn Austria's puzzling appellation system (see related story on this page).

A dizzyingly picturesque stretch of the Danube River 50 miles west of Vienna, the Wachau is blessed with complex soils and a beneficial collision of two distinct climates - cool continental influences from the north, and balmy weather from the eastern Pannonian plain.

These qualities attracted innovators like Peter Veyder-Malberg, an ad-industry refugee from Vienna who had run the Graf Hardegg winery, which he converted to biodynamic farming. In 2008, he landed in the Wachau, hunting for vineyards that could yield distinctive wines.

"The terraces fascinated me because, on soils like this, there has never been a tractor," he says. "I could farm it more like you would a backyard garden."

His Weitenberg vineyard in Weissenkirchen, where terraces of 50-year-old Gruner Veltliner grow amid a blanket of crimson clover and legumes, offers a marked contrast to the defoliated strips nearby. It was surprisingly easy for him to buy; growers often found it too hard to farm the Wachau terraces.

Even at F.X. Pichler's prodigious estate, Lucas Pichler has fine-tuned his father's work. He still makes profoundly ripe wines like the Unendlich (Unending) Riesling, which routinely tops 15 percent alcohol. But the more compelling wines are single-vineyard selections like Kellerberg, from a dramatic rise above Oberloiben, which offers a stateliness to the marjoram aromas and deep minerality.

"My father had more botrytis in his wines," he says, referring to the noble rot that can add a baroque lavishness. "I don't like botrytis in Gruner Veltliner. I like the crispy taste."

How refreshing. That such curiosity thrives in the heart of the Wachau is a sure sign that Austria's recent past is, indeed, prologue. Greatness awaits.

"We Austrians like to say that we have a wine tradition," says Veyder-Malberg. "But this tradition is maybe 25 years old."

A field guide to drinking Austria

Some tips for buying Austrian white wines. Because many 2011 wines have yet to arrive, retail prices and alcohol levels aren't listed below.

The benchmarks

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Some standouts among the releases from the warm, friendly 2011 vintage:

The wines of Peter Veyder-Malberg (importer: CircoVino) are a challenge to find. But the 2011 Weitenberg Wachau Gruner Veltliner demonstrates the intense fruit of 50-year-old vines.

Pichler-Krutzler (importer: Weygandt-Metzler) wines are becoming a benchmark for New Austria. Seek out Gruner Veltliner from the Supperin or Wunderberg vineyards, or Riesling from Trum or In Der Wand.

And while the Wagram's Bernhard Ott (various importers) has a hit in his basic 2011 Am Berg Gruner Veltliner, wine naturalists are craving his Qvevre Gruner Veltliner, fermented on skins in clay amphorae. The fig-leaf-scented 2010 is a fantastic example of that winemaking mode.

Colder, high-acid 2010 is the vintage most likely on shelves right now. Find our recent picks at sfg.ly/PD2Apx.

The liter bottles

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Still a great deal. Look for 2011 releases from Hofer, Etz and Ecker.

- Jon Bonné

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The appellations

In 2002, Austrian authorities began implementing wine appellations, now in effect for eight regions, to help ensure quality and promote terroir rather than grape varieties.

Those are good goals. But while the DAC system is efficient and precise (for more, go to sfg.ly/LjThwA), it also invokes elements of the worst of both worlds - America's legislate-first, vinify-later approach; and the technical rigidity of French appellations. DAC rules, for instance, mandate maximum sugar levels such that some regions' standout wines are disqualified.

And they require specific varieties, as per the French model; the Weinviertel DAC allows only Gruner Veltliner, for example; anything else grown there must be marked with the broader Niederosterreich area. Same with any Kamptal red wines.

It is no surprise, then, that the prestigious Wachau region has refused to adopt a DAC - opting for its own quality standards. For a country that prides itself on embracing New World freedoms, it's a system that can seem surprisingly Old World bureaucratic.